Contact Email

History

Author Content

Two dozen 4-H riders from the region competed Saturday to go to state. Three age groups participated in the breakaway calf roping, team roping, goat roping and round pen exercises. The riders said it was hard work, trying to control their horses and accomplish their skill events. Four local riders will go on to state: Hannah Arvik, Cody Arvik, Chance Jokela and Tlayne Reichling. A fifth rider, Alexis Visser of Pequot Lakes, also goes to state. She rides with the Park Rapids club. Only the two upper age groups are eligible for state competition.

Hubbard County's timber sales policy, which recently came under fire from a local logging company, has now become a sticky situation. That's because no such policy exists as the county was trying to enforce. Last month logger Robin Walsh complained that he was unable to work on side-by-side timber sales bid at different prices. That was to avoid commingling the wood, county officials told him at the time. Walsh's company then had to complete logging one site and move its equipment to start the second sale. Walsh said it lost $3,000 moving its equipment.

A Ponsford man was arrested Wednesday morning following a brief high speed chase and crash through a residential Park Rapids neighborhood. Michael Benjamin Goodman, 23, was arrested after a brief ground search. Charges are pending, but he had an active search warrant out for him at the time. Goodman was allegedly involved in a high-speed pursuit last month leaving Zorbaz pizzeria in Dorset, County Attorney Don Dearstyne said. Charges are pending in that incident as well.

A Nevis area farmer was airlifted to a Fargo hospital Monday night with serious injuries after being caught in a swather. According to the Hubbard County's Sheriff's Department, James Krause, 57, was injured just before 7:30 p.m. near 240th Street northeast of Park Rapids. The report states the swather "engaged into gear and sucked him into the saw.

Five minors were transported to St, Joseph's Area Health Services by ambulance Friday night following a two-vehicle collision at Four Mile Corner. According to the State Patrol: A 2001 Honda minivan was eastbound on County Road 14 south of Park Rapids at the junction of Highways 71 and 87. The minivan failed to yield to a northbound 2005 Nissan Sentra, which then T-boned the minivan. The driver of the minivan was cited for failure to yield. Three passengers in the minivan and the two occupants of the Sentra were taken by ambulance to the Park Rapids hospital. The minivan driver was t

Hubbard County Assessor Bob Hansen's mantra is best told in pie charts: Value doesn't always equate to tax. But it can come pretty darned close. At a presentation Wednesday to the county board, Hansen reiterated the value of lake property to the county coffers, but said those values don't always contribute a commensurate amount of tax dollars to the county. Still, the "lake effect" carries significant economic clout in property valuations and tax dollars contributed to the region.

Tempers flared Thursday at the weekly construction meeting on the Highway 34 project with complaints about the inconvenience of the project stalled by a three-week state shutdown. "We're down 75 percent" in box office revenues, Fred Rogers said of the Minnesota Folklore Theater on Akeley's main thoroughfare. "I want to know who to come to for money" to offset losses, Rogers angrily told DOT personnel and the general contractor.

A public hearing to raise some Hubbard County fees quickly turned into a referendum on policing shoreland violations. The issue of raising fees has been a difficult one that commissioners have grappled with for years. The county board doesn't want to make money off fees, especially in hard times, commissioners have said repeatedly in the past.

A resort in the northeastern corner of Hubbard County that has been the subject of environmental issues is now under criminal investigation for alleged fraud. Hubbard County Attorney Don Dearstyne said his office is investigating "seven or eight" complaints that potential guests at Big Wolf Lake Resort sent thousands of dollars in deposits for cabin rentals while the resort was being foreclosed on. The resort on Wolf Lake is closed, Dearstyne said.

As a contentious lawsuit over the number of docks allowed on residential developments winds through the Minnesota appeals court system, the defendants are now asking Hubbard County's Board of Adjustment for fewer moorings than are at the center of the litigation. The lawsuit over docks at the former Eagle's Landing Resort on 5th Crow Wing Lake has now mushroomed, with the parties asking the Appeals Court to decide issues such as who can appeal a variance decision they don't agree with. At the outset, the fight was whether the BOA had a reasonable basis to grant the 11 docks and what factor